sent used, the accent usually falls on the first syllable,
_Ma'ya_, and the best old authorities affirm this as a rule; but it is a
rule subject to exceptions, as at the end of a sentence and in certain
dialects Dr. Berendt states that it is not infrequently heard as
_Ma'ya'_ or even _Maya'_.[14-1]

The meaning and derivation of the word have given rise to the usual
number of nonsensical and far-fetched etymologies. The Greek, the
Sanscrit, the ancient Coptic and the Hebrew have all been called in to
interpret it. I shall refer to but a few of these profitless
suggestions.

The Abbe Brasseur (de Bourbourg) quotes as the opinion of Don Ramon de
Ordonez, the author of a strange work on American archaeology, called
_History of the Heaven and the Earth_, that _Maya_ is but an
abbreviation of the phrase _ma ay ha_, which, the Abbe adds, means word
for word, _non adest aqua_, and was applied to the peninsula on account
of the scarcity of water there.[15-1]

Unfortunately that phrase has no such, nor any, meaning in Maya; were it
_ma yan haa_, it would have the sense he gives it; and further, as the
Abbe himself remarked in a later work, it is not applicable to Yucatan,
where, though rivers are scarce, wells and water abound. He therefore
preferred to derive it from _ma_ and _ha_, which he thought he could
translate either "Mother of the Water," or "Arm of the Land!"[15-2]

The latest suggestion I have noticed is that of Eligio Ancona, who,
claiming that _Mayab_ is the correct form, and that this means "not
numerous," thinks that it was applied to the first native settlers of
the land, on account of the paucity of their numbers![15-3]

All this seems like learned trifling. The name may belong to that
ancient dialect from which are derived many of the names of the days and
months in the native calendar, and which, as an esoteric language, was
in use among the Maya priests, as was also one among the Aztecs of
Mexico. Instances of this, in fact, are very common among the American
aborigines, and no doubt many words were thus preserved which could not
be analyzed to their radicals through the popular tongue.

Or, if it is essential to find a meaning, why not accept the obvious
signification of the name? _Ma_ is the negative "no," "not;" _ya_ means
rough, fatiguing, difficult, painful, dangerous. The compound _maya_ is
given in the Dictionary of Motul with the translations "not arduous nor
severe; something easy and not diffi